


All That Glitters (Is Not A Necromancer)

by NTheSeventh



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comedy, Corona is Cavsexual, Disaster Lesbian Gideon Nav, Eventual 4 gfs, Eventual Smut, F/F, Princess of the Third sees uncouth unwashed bone nun and thinks OH NO SHE'S HOT, cw: Coronabeth, hopefully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27328645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NTheSeventh/pseuds/NTheSeventh
Summary: When the Crown Princess of the Third wants something, she has a mildly disturbing tendency to get it.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Coronabeth Tridentarius, Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 16
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

Gideon Nav was rattling around Canaan House like a loose ball bearing around one of the machines that kept life on the Ninth just barely this side of unlivable. All she could really hope was that she would ping off few enough things that Harrow would not have to come fix her. 

As time went on, though, she found herself gravitating much more into the training room with the other cavaliers than she would have thought from their first meeting. The various fighters filtering through appeared to ignore her, which was great. Best she’d been treated in forever! But observing them a little more closely, she realized it wasn’t entirely true. Magnus made his usual friendly overtures to her enforced silence. Jeannemary the Horrible Fourth would stare when she thought nobody was looking. Lieutenant Dyas would flick dark glances across her every once in a while without causing even a small wobble in her own perfect form, appearing for all the world as if she were going down a checklist on an invisible Cohort-issued clipboard, ticking off the box labeled “still cuts too much.” And to top it off, Naberius the Third made a show of contemptuously ignoring her whenever he deigned to appear, but somehow always managed to do so while situated as far from her as physically possible without actually fleeing. 

_So, still no point asking about that clever disarm then. Dick._

His necromancer was another matter entirely. The way she watched Gideon was perhaps most like the horrible teen, but without any of the horror or teenhood. Just something like hunger glinting in her eyes. Why she was spending so much time hanging around the local cav population was definitely above Gideon’s dubious pay grade, but nevertheless, she was a sight for sore eyes. This was especially good, because after all the gratuitous rapier practice, Gideon had been left alone and bored, with a sore _everything._

Through the grace of her vow of silence, she managed to not ask whether Coronabeth Tridentarius, Crown Princess of Ida, had ever moonlighted as a model for that particularly prurient comic series published under the relatively innocuous name of _A Little Resurrection,_ specifically in this case the one _with the Gilded Third Swordswomen_. The vow was helped along by the fact that she quite fancied her face in its present configuration and did not want any of it necromantically rearranged. Fortunately, she wasn’t alone. Every other eye in the place was also periodically returning to the scion of the Third, and no wonder. In her entire life on the Ninth, Gideon had never seen that much flesh on one set of bones, let alone so appealingly arranged and provocatively displayed. 

Also, was she getting _closer_ every time Gideon looked up? For a glittering golden amazon over six feet in height, she was being pretty sneaky. It made the hairs at the back of her neck prickle when she considered that in her last interaction with the Third, she had extralegally punched their cavalier in his no-doubt carefully sculpted stomach. She doubted the princess was slowly approaching her with the intent to kiss her hand again. Nope. She was probably going to do something nasty that involved tomes and theorems and undead bullshit.

_Just don’t do it to my face please, it’d be a crime to ruin this much hotness,_ she was thinking when Corona came within feet of her, picking her way over to her purposefully, as if she had spent the past week deliberating and plotting and screwing her courage to the sticking place for dark deeds. _But also, oh holy shit, step on me._

“Ninth,” she began, breathy, flushed, yet somehow utterly confident. “Will you teach me how to fight like you do, rapier and knuckle?”

_Wait, what?  
_

“They’re tremendously nasty,” Corona had said of her knuckle knives, before, with a subtle inflection that suggested that being tremendously nasty in a duel were roughly the equivalent of pinning someone up against a wall with their shimmery robes rucked up round their hips and their exquisitely tight trousers unbuttoned, pulled down just enough so the hand _without_ the knuckles on it could get busy doing exactly what Gideon’s hands were for when they didn’t have a weapon in them. 

At this point Gideon’s train of thought derailed spectacularly, wreaking fiery havoc on the quaint and unsuspecting little town nestled in the hills of a picturesque neighboring metaphor.

“Only if you have time, of course,” Coronabeth was saying, when disaster cleanup operations were finally underway enough that Gideon was able to process auditory input again. “And I know you don’t talk, so it’s alright if you just show me the form. Position me how you like and such, until I start to get the hang of it, and we’ll go from there.”

It was difficult to pinch herself without being observed, but Gideon could swear she was just invited to put her hands all over the most attractive woman she’d ever seen. Yes, she knew several different ways she might like to position Coronabeth. Admittedly, not one of them actually involved any weapons, but what could you do?

What she _did_ was nod.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, jpnadia, for betaing and cheering me on to write in the first place!  
> And of course, all y'all who commented. Made my day every time.

It would have been so much easier if the Third necromancer had been hopeless with a sword, but she was far from that. Gideon didn’t say as much, obviously, but she might have been born to hold a blade. The way she moved, with the rapier particularly, spoke less of hours spent poring over old books and more of hours spent training, including leg day routines that went beyond climbing countless worn and crumbling stairs. Her long limbs gave her a stupendous reach, too. She had the potential, visibly, for handling something bigger, maybe a match for Gideon’s two-hander. And unfortunately, or at least semi-unfortunately, she hadn’t required a great deal of positioning. Gideon sure hadn’t seen such a necromancer outside of her comics, and consequently she was really trying hard not to think about _Gilded Third Swordswomen_ just at that moment.

As a mental exercise, she undertook to imagine her pupil’s pallid double picking up a sword, or Sextus for that matter, or really any necro she’d met but this one. When she pictured Harrowhark struggling under the weight of a claymore, failing spectacularly, and falling, mysterious ass over inscrutable tits, she forgot herself and laughed out loud.

Immediately, Coronabeth paused in her drill and swept over to her; those amethyst eyes were sparkling with delight and fixing her to the spot like a predator’s gaze. When she looked at you, you stayed looked-at. “So, you’re a ginger, _and_ you can _laugh!_ You’re not laughing at me, I hope… Did I make some horrid mistake?”

Gideon shook her head, remembering, with something that felt like embarrassment but definitely wasn’t, how the princess had lit up the first time she had removed her hood during one of their earlier practices.

“I wonder,” Corona mused as Gideon gamely directed her into the next stage of exercises, “what other surprises you have in store for me.”

Gideon shrugged, taking her place opposite the Third.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s more to find out.”

Their blades met. It was a careful dance of a partnered drill, but Corona with a sword almost always moved like she was out for blood, and as if she thought Gideon was too. It was yet another sign, if she was honest with herself, (which she was, at least at the moment), that this poor woman was wasted on being a necromancer.

“I have to wonder just what you’re hiding behind those glasses, for a start. You can tell a lot about someone from their eyes.”

Unlike Dulcinea, she didn’t make any direct request for her to remove said article, at least. Gideon turned aside the princess’s thrust with the bladed gauntlet and aimed her own. Corona’s rapier tangled up her counterattack.

“I’m very good at keeping secrets, after all. And I want to keep yours.”

That attack with the knuckles was part of the drill too. Gideon caught Corona’s fist, momentarily distracted by something like a spark that seemed to go through her whenever they actually touched skin to skin.

“As many as you’ll give me.”

In a flash, they found themselves blade to blade again, and Corona was closing the distance between them, as slowly and surely as she had been when she first asked Gideon for help.

“Maybe as many as you have,” she practically purred.

Corona slipping inside her guard like a hot scalpel through corpse grease was not supposed to happen in this particular drill, but here they were.

“I suspect I even have ways of making you talk.” Corona laughed often, which Gideon very much enjoyed, especially since it wasn’t directed maliciously at her. She sounded like silvery bells sometimes, and like the heartcry of a wild animal deprived of its lunch (or at least what Gideon assumed that would sound like, animals of any kind being in short supply for the Ninth House) at others. This one was more on the bells side of things.

It coincided with Gideon’s foot hitting something behind her. The word ‘wall’ registered dimly in the back of her brain. Since when had she even been backing up? Either way, she was most certainly caught now, directly between a hard place and a couple of rather soft ones. It was mortifying to her as a swordswoman. (As but a simple gay, it was something else entirely.)

“One of these days we should have a proper match, you and I,” Corona said, appearing to change the subject. “Somewhere private, of course.”

Gideon didn’t look at her in confusion because she literally wasn’t in a position to, with her back now firmly against the wall, both their blades locked over to one side, and a gauntleted hand planted next to her face. The Crown Princess’s barely-contained breasts were pressed up against hers in a way that made her need a lie-down, preferably under their owner. This had nothing and everything to do with how much trouble she was having evening out her breathing.

“And if you’ll duel me, I’ll bed you.” Corona said this with her mouth very close to Gideon’s ear. Her breath was hot, and the whispery touch of it, so close to her skin, sent prickles down Gideon’s neck. As usual, the Voice did its work, sending a rush of blood straight to where it probably shouldn’t be going, at least not until after they had this theoretical bout. She blinked in disbelief. 

“Just a friendly match, of course, to the first touch, or the disarm.”

That checked out at least; the other terms already made it sound like a _very_ friendly match.

“Unless you want to take it to the floor…”

Gideon was much too tongue-tied to respond aloud with what seemed like the obvious question: if the princess had meant if she _defeated_ her, or just if they fought, which would have meant very different things. Once again her assumed vow of silence saved her from looking like a fool. Harrow’s stupid little rules kept being helpful, and she did not like the pattern. Under the paint, she was certain that her face was speaking volumes without her consent, especially when Corona leaned in even closer to murmur, in an even more sultry tone (and there would be scholarly debate over whether that were physically possible), “You heard me. I know you did. You’ve got the exact same expression as that cav in _Bone Me on the Ninth.”_

This was too much for Gideon, even though she hadn’t been able to _read_ that one. At least not past the full spread of someone who looked a lot like Harrow, if Harrow had looked a lot like Corona.

The brazen princess seemed to make a note of this. “So you’re not sure. Well, then. Search your feelings, Gideon, and then come back to me quickly. I want to fight you, and I want to fuck you, and I’ll admit to a certain level of patience when I want something. But not that much.”

She suddenly realized that she had never once heard Corona say ‘fuck’ before, and also that the prickles were going farther down her spine with each passing moment. But when she looked up, Corona had already left to go wherever she went when she wasn't driving her to distraction in person. Gideon lingered dazedly in the training room until Jeannemary the Fourth peeked around the corner at her, with what had to be a horrible expression of teenaged concern.

That would have been enough to snap _anybody_ out of it.


	3. Chapter 3

Arriving at the site of her squalid little blanket-nest, Gideon was assaulted by the sight of a piece of scrap flimsy resting on her stolen pillow like it was entitled to be there. She picked it up, and was further provoked by the sight of Harrow’s handwriting. 

_The Third are snakes. Even the somewhat attractive ones. Avoid, avoid._

“How did she even _know?”_ she asked aloud, the words shocked out of her. _“_ Ugh, was the little bone freak watching us? Nope, don’t even want to think about that.”

Casting a furtive glance around for a certain lurking-prone necromancer, she slipped out of her shabby robes. Corona wanting her in spite of her appearing so… _Ninth,_ was the only way to encapsulate the effect, as much as she hated it, well, it made her feel vindicated in believing in her own hotness, more than ever. She briefly considered flaunting it at Harrow, if it bothered her so much that her cavalier had such game. 

“Look, Harrow, that alleged _snake,_ the hot one I mean, wants to get in my trousers,” she declared to the silent, deserted Ninth House quarters. “So suck it,” she added, a moment of contemplation later. The empty air failed to glower effectively. 

It wasn’t very satisfying. But alas, the problem with actually talking to Harrow was the part with the talking, and even worse, the part with the Harrow. Probably wasn’t worth it, even for the chance to taunt her about how Gideon was going to get laid by what had to be one of the most gorgeous women in the Nine Houses, whilst the necromancer would probably still have boning wards up her locked tomb if she lived an eternity. 

Nothing for it tonight but to spend some time alone with her thoughts, and maybe sneak some dinner. Tomorrow she could find the princess and make it clear that all the hesitation was due to surprise. She considered the one bit of _Eat Me on the Third_ where the fantastically busty necromancer queen was expounding on the virtues of a proper cavalier, always ready to serve in any capacity. She figured she had that part down, at least, or would if she weren’t unfortunate enough to be sworn to such a creepy, overbearing, evil stick. 

“This note won’t stop me,” she said, decisively, glaring at the offending object again. “She keeps calling me illiterate anyway.”

Instead, she rolled the scrap of flimsy up into a little scroll and pocketed it to throw away later. Once she was done roundly kicking herself for not giving Coronabeth an immediate yes.

\------

The next afternoon, she found Corona had beaten her to the practice room and was drilling on her own, face already glowing with exertion and a fine sheen of sweat. She had pulled her hair back off of her elegant neck, shed her fancy, floating robes and hung them sloppily on one of the sword racks, just the way she did whenever they had their secretive meetings like this. For some reason, the tight clothes she always wore underneath seemed even more revealing than usual as she stepped toward Gideon with just that little bit of sway in her gait.

“I take it that since you’re here, you accept my offer?”

Gideon nodded, swallowing against the nerves that hit her suddenly. 

Corona’s voice rang out in the persona of the referee, just habitually, calling out the terms of the match. In the time they’d spent together, she’d managed to convey the meanings of at least some of the fancy words she used for the purpose, things Aiglamene never mentioned or maybe never knew about. But now all that learning that had _not_ been beaten into her from childhood had gone winging out the window, and all Gideon could think was _Fuck, how can she be so composed?_

Her mind was definitely not on the fight. Nor had it actually lodged itself in the princess’s cleavage. In fact, as far as Gideon could tell, it had taken a little vacation and left her body to do all the work for her. Afterwards, she could barely even recall how it had happened, only that it ended quickly, with Coronabeth conceding defeat with a delighted laugh and Gideon’s blade pointing rather unsteadily at her heart.

“Clever little trick, Ninth… you’ll have to show me how to do it soon.”

_Shit, what did I even do?_

“Color me surprised you didn’t slaughter poor Babs,” she went on, carefully laying her borrowed equipment on the rack. “He’ll be positively _green_ if he finds out I got a look at you. Green and insufferable. But forget him…”

Corona’s eyes were dark and hazy with want when she looked back up, tossing an embroidered glove aside like the thread alone wouldn’t have bought the entirety of the Ninth House with all its stock (technically, _uncomfortably,_ still including Gideon’s own person). “You still want this?” she asked, though with how fast she was moving it had the makings of a purely rhetorical question. 

_Oh, I see, this is happening now_ , Gideon did not say, because she did not have time. As if a _no_ would have ever escaped her lips, when she’d been primed for this for what felt like ages. 

Instead, Corona’s mouth crashed into hers with the force of a breaking storm that swallowed up any misgivings about, say, people who might walk in here at any second to use the room for its intended purpose. The plain black rapier of the Ninth clattered to the floor from nerveless fingers as her sword hand was pinned. How odd that she’d still been holding it. 

Gideon was suddenly, pointedly aware that her erstwhile opponent was bigger than her. That shouldn’t have mattered, but it was the thought that her brain got stuck on before it finally got with the program. Gideon had been trained and tempered in the most miserable pit of Hell. She was stronger than this soft, pampered princess of the Third. Stronger than any God damned _necromancer,_ for fuck sake. She _knew_ this, on an intellectual level, and yet she could not even move as she was devoured with kisses, as her breeches were undone and her underclothes infiltrated by the spy network of the Nine Houses, who was also cooing absolutely _filthy_ things in her ear.

This was definitely not how she had envisioned her first time going. 

She would not have imagined herself pinned unceremoniously against the wall of a pre-Resurrection fencing salle with somebody’s… _Oh fuck…_ apparently very well-practiced hand taking her to pieces, and then further reducing those pieces to a sort of quivering jelly, which was held into a Gideon-shape only by the outfit she was still wearing, for reasons that were _really_ escaping her at the moment. 

Perhaps foolishly, she thought she would be the one doing the taking apart.

Corona brought her off quick and dirty on her long, perfect fingers, and she made an _extremely_ embarrassing sound. The princess held her up against the wall until she stopped shaking, and then pulled away to look at her like an artist examining her latest work.

And after that, she would have swallowed her own sword if this wasn’t exactly how her first time _should_ have gone.

Breathless and still soaking wet, she tried her best to put her carefully crafted self-image back together as soon as she was confident enough to peel herself off the wall without falling over.

“Well? Are you coming?”

Gideon paused halfway through refastening her pants to make sense of the question.

_I mean I_ did, yes, _but not right this second._

She somehow suspected Corona knew that, and kept to her vow. Although she amended it (without anything like Harrow’s permission, and why was she thinking about Harrow _now?_ ) into a vow of wordlessness rather than actual silence, considering the noises.

She looked over at the Crown Princess, eyes full of questions. She was met with both a wicked grin that made her legs go all wobbly again, and an extended hand that made somehow made it even better and even worse. 

“Oh, Gideon… it’s so cute how you think I’m done with you.”


End file.
